Embry-Riddle's Carter accustomed to being center of attention

Thursday

The Eagles' sophomore guard grew up on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation and played high school basketball at national powerhouse Montverde Academy.

DAYTONA BEACH — Embry-Riddle basketball player DeForest Carter hears the questions all the time: Do you wear a deerskin jacket? Do you live in a tepee? Carter is half Seminole Indian on his mother's side and grew up on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation on the edge of the Everglades, outside of Clewiston. He's never annoyed by the questions. He finds them funny and understands people's curiosity. “It's a unique thing that I get to share with other people,'' Carter said. “When was the last time you ever met a person who said they're actually a Seminole Indian and stayed on the reservation and grew up like that?'' Everything about Carter seems uncommon, from his heritage to his basketball ability. The do-it-all sophomore is one of the most versatile players ERAU has ever had. The 6-foot-1 muscular guard leads the 23rd-ranked Eagles, who host Johnson & Wales at 7 tonight, in scoring (14.3 points per game) and assists (6.8) and is second on the team in rebounding (5.8). “He's very unique, at the top of the charts,'' ERAU coach Steve Ridder said of the two-time Sun Conference player of the week this season. “He's such a versatile player, multidimensional. He can score, he can rebound, he can defend, he can handle the ball. Overall, he's at a real high level in all those areas. I don't think we've ever had a player in 24 years who was as talented in such a number of areas like that.'' Ridder said Carter is the type of player all NAIA coaches are constantly looking for — a “hidden jewel'' that NCAA Division I coaches might overlook. But Carter was “hidden'' on one of the most prominent basketball teams in the nation — national powerhouse Montverde Academy. And while one would think it might be easy to get lost among the shear numbers of talented players who flood the halls of the Central Florida college preparatory school, that was not the case with Carter. “They obviously have a great program over there. Some of the best players in the country are at Montverde year-in and year-out,'' Ridder said. “But their (former coach, Kevin Sutton) really loved DeForest, because he was homegrown — he was there the whole four years. They took him off the floor very little. Even though they had a lot of depth, they really thought they needed DeForest to win games.'' He did actually receive late interest from a Division I school, but Carter honored his letter of intent with the Eagles. He averaged 12.3 points as a high school senior and almost matched that in his freshman season at ERAU (11.4 ppg). “You come in as a freshman, you don't think you're going to play a lot, Carter said. “And I was our third leading scorer. It was a transition. In high school I was a facilitator — pass, pass, pass and not score.'' This year, Carter has become the team's focal point on offense with his ability to drive to the basket and finish, drop off to a player inside or kick the ball out. “He's so fun to play with,'' freshman forward Daniel Kiesling said. “He brings an energy to practice and to games that is unlike anybody else on our team. When he's excited, it trickles down the tree. Everybody looks up to DeForest as a leader on our team.'' As intriguing as Carter is as a basketball player, his upbringing seems to provide the most interest among his teammates and coaches. “We're fascinated by it,'' Ridder said. “It's obviously a unique lifestyle.'' Kiesling, who is from Lexington, Ky., got a chance to drive down to the reservation with Carter and another friend and said it was like visiting another world. The visitors rode a swamp buggy through the Billie Swamp Safari where they observed native and exotic animals, and they learned about Seminole tribe history at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum. “It's cool that we can be such close friends even though we can be from such different places,'' Kiesling said. “When you first hear of an Indian reservation, you think of tepees and stuff like that. But it's not like that.'' When Carter was 10 his mother, Myra Jumper, moved the immediate family off the reservation and to Ocoee, outside of Orlando. “My mom saw that both me and my brother (Greg) had potential in sports since we both played basketball and football, and she wanted to give us the best opportunity,'' Carter said. “So we went to a big city and we went to big schools to have a better chance to succeed in life.'' He said he experienced some culture shock when he encountered homelessness and crime for the first time. “It was kind of awkward to see how the other side lives in the city,'' he said. “Where I'm from everybody knows each other and says, ‘Hi.' Everyone has a house. It's a much different culture.'' When Carter attended the reservation school, he said he took a culture class where he learned such skills as beading and patchwork. His mother's home and grandmother's home and aunts' homes are all clustered together. But the entire community, which includes eight clans — Carter is in the Otter Clan — is like one big family, he said. “We're basically out in the woods,'' he said. “Basically it's a big family growing up together with not much to do except play basketball and go to school and ride four-wheelers and go out to the woods.'' And some day Carter hopes to return and establish roots there. “They have a high school basketball team now,'' he said. “I hope I can further my career, and when I'm done I want to coach and help people, help the other kids get off the reservation.''

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